David on Formosa

I have mentioned on this blog a few times before that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd speaks Mandarin and once studied in Taiwan. This interesting little anecdote comes from a Taiwan News article reporting on Lien Chan’s trip to the APEC Conference in Peru.

On a side note, Lien mentioned that he noticed Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd being asked by Chinese President Hu Jintao why he chose Taiwan rather than China to study Chinese.

Rudd replied that China did not offer scholarships to foreigners to study the language while Taiwan did.

I am very curious to know whether Kevin Rudd also chatted with Lien Chan at the meeting and what was said.